A place where art, medicine, social media and pop-culture collide and create a patient voice in health information technology.

Search This Blog

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The Littlest Walker

As I painted jacket after jacket in the month of May, my little five-year-old son Isaac waited.

He waited for his snack, he waited to play, he waited for his story time and he just waited. One day he stood beside me, looking at the painting on a jacket. He stared at the kitchen that had become a studio. He was waiting. “Yes, Isaac?” I said in a slightly dismissive tone as I blended the colors within an image.

He responded, “When will you paint my jacket?” I stopped painting and looked at Isaac asking, “Do you want to join the Gallery? Do you want to be a walker? What would be your story?”

He looked at me with his deep blue eyes. He said, “Well, you can paint a snake because there are snakes in medicine. Snakes help make anti-venom. That makes people better if they get bited. You can paint Doctor Who because he is a doctor and he helps people. And you can paint some of the other Doctor Who characters “

And so Isaac joined the Gallery.

This is Isaac Holliday’s Jacket: “Doctor Who in Medicine."

Isaac has been watching Doctor Who since he was three. In the Fall of 2008, we watched every episode of the new BBC run as a family. It was the most joyful time. We celebrated Freddie’s birthday (Isaac’s older brother) with a Doctor Who party. We and our friends dressed as the characters for Halloween. For Christmas, Freddie got a Tardis playset and Isaac got a Cyberman helmet.

And then came January, Daddy was sick and tired. And Isaac waited for Daddy to play with him. But Daddy hurt. In February, Daddy felt worse. Isaac waited. In March, we gathered up the family and a bag of Doctor Who action figures, and went to the ER to see why was Daddy suffering so. Daddy waited, Mommy waited, Freddie waited and Isaac waited for three hours in that beautiful waiting room. We waited three hours to be sent home with pain medications.

By the end of the month, Fred would be admitted to that very same hospital and he would never walk again. Isaac would sit on the floor next to Daddy’s bed playing with toys. And sometimes Isaac would crawl up into Fred's bed. He would nestle there carefully within an embrace of arms and IV lines, but Isaac remembers he accidently hurt Daddy with his shoes. This picture is of that moment.

Isaac didn’t really ask for much. He just wanted you to hold him. He would wait for that.

The Walking Gallery Mini Doc

About Me

Regina Holliday is a resident of Grantsville, Maryland. She serves on the board of the local non-profit The Highland Thrift Shop. She is a member of the Grantsville Rotary Club. She is also Asst. Cubmaster of Pack 460 Cub Scouts.

In addition, Regina serves as a parent advisor to the Garrett County School Board Health Advisory Committee. She is also a member of the Garrett County Chamber of Commerce and The Garrett County Arts Council.

Ms. Holliday is an activist, artist, speaker and author. You might see her at a health conference painting the content she hears from the patient view. She is part the movement known as participatory medicine. She and others in this movement believe that the patient is a partner with their provider and both should work together as a team.

Regina is a mother and a widow; she speaks about the benefits of health information technology and timely data access for patients due to her family loss. In 2009, she painted a series of murals depicting the need for clarity and transparency in medical records. This advocacy mission was inspired by her late husband Frederick Allen Holliday II and his struggle to get appropriate care during 11 weeks of continuous hospitalization at 5 facilities. Her paintings became part of the national debate on health care reform and helped guide public policy.

She also began an advocacy movement called “The Walking Gallery.” The Gallery consists of medical providers and advocates who wear patient story paintings on the backs of business suits. Paint and patients, pills and policy all come together within The Walking Gallery of Healthcare. This "walking wall" of 330+ individuals who wear personal patient narrative paintings on their backs is changing minds and opening hearts. They are attending medical conferences where often there isn’t a patient speaker on the dais or in the audience. They are providing a patient voice, and by doing so, are changing the conversation.

She published a book with the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) entitled: "The Walking Wall: 73 Cents to the Walking Gallery."